Case Study
Global IT Services Provider Gains Comprehensive Merger
and Acquisition Integration Expertise
Executive Summary
CUSTOMER NAME
Wipro Ltd.
INDUSTRY
IT Services Provider
Business Challenges
• A cquire external companies in
new markets and geographies
• Develop an integration strategy
to accelerate returns from
acquired entities
• Create sustainable, repeatable
integration processes
SOLUTIONS
• P artner with Cisco IBSG to estab-
lish integration as an ongoing
program rather than a transaction-
specific response
• Secure sponsorship from relevant
business functions for a coordi-
nated integration strategy
• Develop an IT playbook for
integrating acquired processes,
applications, and infrastructure
BUSINESS RESULTS
• D eveloped a comprehensive
strategy for rapid integration
• Aligned operational expertise with
integration strategy
• Increased executives’ confidence
in new, inorganic strategy
Cisco Internet Business Solutions Group (IBSG)
Cisco IBSG Copyright © 2007 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.
Wipro Ltd., a leading IT services and business process out­sourcing
company headquartered in India, planned an aggressive inorganic
growth strategy based on acquiring entities in new markets and geog-
raphies. Working closely with the Cisco® Internet Business Solutions
Group (IBSG), Wipro crafted a comprehensive strategy for building
the internal competencies and capabilities to integrate new compa-
nies rapidly and ensure that new acquisitions deliver desired results.
Business Challenges
The IT services industry in India has never been stronger—or more
competitive. Providers are experiencing revenue expansion with much
of the growth coming from overseas markets. For these companies,
inorganic growth through acquisitions is becoming an essential strategy
to achieve their growth targets.
The history of corporate mergers and acquisitions in all industries, how-
ever, is fraught with failure. Recognizing this, Wipro Ltd. was searching for
a new way to approach acquisitions. The company needed to expand its
global capabilities over the next several years, and its future profitability
depended on finding a way to integrate multiple companies around the
globe, smoothly and successfully.
“It is particularly challenging for our industry because we are very
knowledge-based and people-based,” says Sudip Nandy, chief strategy
officer, Wipro. “The biggest risk with any acquisition we undertake is that
we will not be able to assimilate the acquired company well in terms of
the business culture.”
Wipro executives recognized that to fully integrate a new company into
a single, global Wipro culture, the assimilation had to be comprehensive
and begin on day one, starting with combining disparate IT systems
and processes.
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“In the first few acquisitions we did, we struggled,” says Nandy. “It took us several
months to migrate all of the systems and processes and make them Wipro-like.
We recognize that any integration program has to cover every aspect of employ-
ees’ lives, from the e-mail accounts they use to how they apply for vacation days
and business reimbursements. These are not critical processes from a customer’s
point of view, but they can take up so much of an employee’s time and attention in
the first few months. If they are not handled well, employees begin to lose morale,
which kills productivity and, ultimately, affects customer satisfaction.”
“We knew that we would For a growing and global company like Wipro the complexity of integrating
be investing a lot of processes across different cultures and geographies into a single corporate
energy and resources
environment posed an enormous challenge. “For example, a single project
would have technology architects in Portugal, domain experts in London, and
into mergers and acqui-
software developers in India,” says Nandy. “This dispersion of resources can
sitions, and we wanted cause project delays if people are not working on the same systems or in a col-
to learn from the lead- laborative manner. Delivery becomes very complicated. Quality, timeliness, and
ing practitioners.” even issues of profitability and cost—all of those things can be impeded if you
do not have the right environment.”
Sudip Nandy
Chief Strategy Officer
Wipro Solutions
The decision to work with IBSG came from Wipro’s history of using Cisco prod-
ucts and a mutual trust between both companies.
“We knew that we would be investing a lot of energy and resources into mergers
and acquisitions, and we wanted to learn from the leading practitioners,” says
Nandy. “With Cisco, the technologies we work with are very similar, the customer
sets are very similar, and, like us, many of the companies that Cisco has acquired
were integrated into existing units, instead of continuing to operate autonomously.
Cisco had experience with a lot of concepts that no other organization could
have offered.”
“Cisco was widely recognized as the experts in acquisitions, but we also felt
that they shared our value system,” says Laxman Badiga, CIO, Wipro. “The way
people work, the way they interact, the way they relate to a new entity—we felt
that Cisco’s approach and culture was very close to our own.”
IBSG and Wipro executives identified several key elements for a successful inte-
gration strategy and began pilots with Wipro’s IT organization. The lessons learned
here were then expanded to other business functions. Wipro’s functional leaders
attended an executive conference at Cisco’s headquarters, in San Jose, California,
where they spoke with their Cisco counterparts about about their own functional
strategies and cross-functional coordination for successful integration.

Prepared by Cisco Internet Business Solutions Group

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 Case Study

Crafting an Integration Strategy

Developing a strong philosophy toward acquisition integration was the most
important step in building a comprehensive integration strategy. Furthermore,
this philosophy had to start at the top of the organization. The first step was to
treat acquisitions as an ongoing corporate program fundamental to the company’s
success—and not as an event-specific response to a particular transaction.
“One of the most important mind-set changes we had through this engagement
was to think of mergers and acquisitions less as a project and more as a pro-
“More than a year after cess,” says Nandy, noting that handling acquisitions any other way would create
partnering with Cisco, too much complexity and waste.
we have done sev-
The importance of acquisitions to each business unit and the role each manager
eral acquisitions that played were also important issues that needed to be addressed. IBSG worked
allowed us to imple- with business-unit leaders in sales, IT, human resources, finance, and other areas
ment and test the to reinforce these ideas, sharing best practices to help leaders develop the
processes we devel- necessary capabilities to support the acquisition integration program. IBSG also
oped. Today, we can helped Wipro recognize the need for cross-functional business stewardship to
oversee ongoing integration processes and resolve related issues rapidly.
say confidently that
we have a very robust
Playing by the Book
process in place.”
A comprehensive IT playbook is one of the most significant outcomes of the
Laxman Badiga IBSG partnership with Wipro. This playbook formalizes Wipro’s IT integration
Chief Information Officer approach and encompasses infrastructure, applications, and security elements.
Wipro
The playbook also provides guidance on integrating different acquisition models
that Wipro may choose to execute in the future.
“When we began working with Cisco, we found that we were already doing
many of the things they were suggesting, but our efforts were not structured,”
says Bani Guhathakurta, IT acquisition integration lead, Wipro. “Cisco helped
us create a very structured approach to integration, including desired service
levels and implementation guidelines. We also received guidance about con­
tinuous improvements we could achieve. Cisco took us through their entire
process and that gave us a lot of confidence.”

Business Results
Today, Wipro takes a comprehensive, companywide approach to mergers
and acquisitions, based on proven best practices and its own evolving
integration experience.
The IT playbook in particular provides comprehensive integration guidelines for
incorporating new acquisitions into a unified Wipro environment as quickly and
as smoothly as possible.
“We now have a clearly identified plan of action for any entity we are acquiring
that tells us when each event will happen,” says Badiga. “That has been a great
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 Case Study

help for us because everything today is so system-dependent. Now, we are

able to have the basic IT infrastructure integrated for any merger by the time the
announcement is made, and other functional areas can plan their own integration
activities around that infrastructure.”
Furthermore, the IT playbook has become the benchmark for how other relevant
business functions can create their own integration guidelines. Wipro’s new
acquisitions integration philosophy supports the structure and people that each
functional area needs in order to seamlessly incorporate newly acquired organi-
“Wipro’s experience zations into a single, global Wipro culture.
in successfully integrat- “The integration team remains common for all acquisitions, allowing them to
ing recent acquisitions bring their continually growing experience to each new acquisition,” says Nandy.
gives us confidence to “This basic commitment to acquisitions within each functional unit, and the plan-
pursue our inorganic ning and detail that we can bring to every aspect of integration is something that
we picked up from Cisco, and that input has been vital for us.”
growth strategy more
aggressively in the In a recent letter to shareholders, Azim Premji, chairman and chief executive
future.” officer of Wipro, recognized that current acquisitions “were making good prog-
ress on integration.” He also noted that the revenue growth rates from Wipro’s
Azim Premji acquisitions were in fact ahead of the company’s already very impressive rate
Chairman and Chief
of overall growth.
Executive Officer, Wipro
Wipro plans to pursue its inorganic growth strategy, adding to its internal compe-
tency and functional expertise as it integrates acquired companies. The company
is confident that this strategy will continue to fuel the growth of the corporation.
According to Mr. Premji, “Wipro’s experience in successfully integrating recent
acquisitions gives us the confidence to pursue our inorganic growth strategy
more aggressively in the future.”

More Information
The Cisco Internet Business Solutions Group (IBSG), the global strategic consulting arm of Cisco, helps Global Fortune 500 companies
and public organizations transform the way they do business—first by designing innovative business processes, and then by integrating
advanced technologies into visionary roadmaps that improve customer experience and revenue growth.

For further information about IBSG, visit http://www.cisco.com/go/ibsg

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